Sepia Toning. What it is and what it isn't.

Sepia print questions usually follow ones on black and white. So today I will add an entry to explain what they are and why are they done.

Sepia (pronounced "see-pee-a") toning of silver based black and white prints is done to increase the longevity of the image. It does this by stabilising the chemicals involved, replacing the more reactive ones with more stable ones. It tends to cast a strong brownish tinge to the image.

Some people like the brown tone, so there are a lot of people who "fake it" on digital images. This is very easy to do by importing a colour image into Photoshop and using the "convert to sepia" action. This yields a brown print on colour paper.

This is not a Sepia toned image.

Its marketing talk for "we will give you brown photos". They are poor imitations and are why I do not offer this (dis)service.

So what's the REAL process?

• Take a hand printed silver based black and white image
• Bleach it
• Soak it in the appropriate toning chemical
• Rinse and dry

Do we do them? Yes if need be but there is a better way...why stop there? Besides sepia it is possible to tone with other chemicals like Selenium and GOLD!

SELENIUM is popular and is used for fine art photography around the world. It enhances tonal range in the image. This is the toning medium we usually use.

Other possible metals for toning include GOLD and PLATINUM.